A growing need exists for practical systems of identification for use in various specific applications to detect improper documents. One aspect of the problem involves authenticating as genuine, documents in a wide variety of different forms as identification cards, financial cards, including debit and credit cards, certificates of title, documents of ownership, labels and so on. Another aspect of the problem involves the detection of documents that are genuine, but have been modified with regard to critical data. Thus, the effective authentication or verification of many forms of documents requires that they be verified both as to substance and content. Accordingly, a need exists for an improved, economical, and effective document system for meeting that continuing need.
Many forms of documents are used to provide data of financial, commercial, or legal significance. For example, stock certificates and other forms of financial paper constitute a record of ownership but also carry considerable critical data regarding that ownership. A stock certificate might designate a specific individual as the owner of a spcific number of shares in a specific company and relate such data to a specific certificate number. Of course, such information is critically important when the certificate is used to support any of a variety of transactions. In that regard, as suggested above, before transactions are based on a document, it should be authenticated as: (1) genuine and (2) bearing unmodified critical information.
In general, the importance of authenticating documents has necessitated considerable manual involvement in transactions involving such documents. Accordingly, a need exists for an improved, effective and economical system whereby documents can be sensed for data to be processed (as by machine reading) and confirmed as being authentic both with regard to the basic material substance of the document and its informational content.
Various techniques have been proposed for authenticating the substance, e.g. paper of a document as genuine. Techniques have also been proposed for supplementing such authentication techniques by involving other data, e.g. account numbers. However, such techniques have not generally sought to verify or authenticate such data. In that regard, the system of the present invention integrates data serving to verify the document substance with critical document content data to authenticate a document as genuine and unmodified with regard to information provided.
In general, the system of the present invention involves a specific structural format for unique documents which are capable of individual verification both with respect to composition genuineness and informational content. In accordance with the disclosed embodiment, the document takes the form of a sheet of medium having a unique anti-counterfeit characteristic which may be machine sensed. That characteristic provides uniqueness data. The document carries statistical data relating to the essential elements of the document, e.g. financial, legal, and so on, at least a portion of which is deemed critical. The document also carries an integral combination of the uniqueness data and the statistical data. In accordance with the disclosed embodiment, the combination data may be encrypted for subsequent decoding to enable comparisons of both uniqueness data and statistical data to verify the document and its content as genuine.
The present invention also embraces a processor for the documents or authenticator devices including structure for sensing the unique anti-counterfeit characteristic data along with certain statistical data, combining and recording the results. A test process in accordance with the invention senses combined data, decodes such data and performs comparisons with freshly sensed uniqueness and statistical data. Depending upon the results of the comparison, the system may manifest that the document is authentic with regard to substance and content.
As disclosed in detail below, the system hereof may be variously implemented using different media, document compositions, and techniques. For example, a variety of mediums might be employed having substantially unique characteristics for verification. Also, any of a variety of specific component structures may be employed in the system for producing and authenticating documents in accordance herewith.